This introductory talk at the Cosmic Questions conference sponsored by the AAAS summarizes some earlier pictures of the universe and some pictures based on modern physics and cosmology. The uroboros (snake swallowing its tail) is an example of a traditional picture. The Biblical flat-earth picture was very different from the Greek spherical earth-centered picture, which was the standard view un...

This study looks at perceptions of safety and danger regarding crime in Medellín, Colombia. I used two different datasets to look at this issue in both the specific situations that incite fear of crime and in the broader context of perceived safety and danger across the city as a whole. The first dataset comes from 42 interviews that I conducted with university students in May of 2009. The inte...

In an essay addressing the nature of the emergent field of applied cognitive science, Hoffman and Deffenbacher [Hoffman, R.R. and Deffenbacher, K.A., 1993. An analysis of the relations of basic and applied science. Ecological Psychology, 5, 315–352] argued that available distinctions between basic and applied science were inadequate for capturing the pertinent comparisons. Their multidimensiona...